


subject/object

by loonylu



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Child Neglect, Dissociation, Grounding techniques, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Panic Attacks, crime crew era, juno's coat, necessity to nostalgia i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:01:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23902765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loonylu/pseuds/loonylu
Summary: Juno shows Nureyev a coping mechanism he learned from Benzaiten.
Relationships: Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel
Comments: 18
Kudos: 237





	subject/object

**Author's Note:**

> so i've been having a hard time writing lately so i thought i'd do a short little drabble based on my hand-me-down childhood

_ See this coat? Rita got it for me, when we started the PI business. She took me to a thrift store, a big one out in the suburbs, and she made me try it on and then wouldn’t let me pay for it. I complained the whole time. After we escaped Miasma, it was in rough shape.  _

Juno used to hate when Ben did this, when they were kids. They’d be locked in the bathroom while Sarah raged outside, and Ben would curl up in the dry bathtub and rub the cloth of his t-shirt between two fingers and mumble  _ mick’s cousin gave it to mick, and then mick grew out of it so he gave it to juno, and juno didn’t like it so now it’s mine and last week I sewed up the hole in the back.  _ Tie and untie his shoelaces and say  _ annie got these for her birthday and gave them to me when mine broke.  _ Like the endless chains of hand-me-downs mattered for an old t-shirt with holes in the armpits, or shoelaces nobody wanted. To Juno, the litany of unwantedness lodged in his throat in the same way  _ worthless little monster  _ did _. _

After Ben dies, Juno starts to see the appeal. When the walls of his shoebox apartment feel like they’re collapsing around him, he’d put on one of Ben’s airy sweaters and whisper to himself,  _ sasha’s dad knit this for her but sasha knew how much ben loved it so sasha gave it to him for his birthday without telling her dad and now it’s mine.  _ When Juno pulls his blanket tighter around his shoulders he feels its frayed weight and whispers,  _ mick’s dad’s spare blanket he gave us when Ma didn’t pay the heat bill and we showed up on his doorstep shivering.  _ In that first apartment, in the academy, he’s whispering constantly. All the little objects, all the relics of Oldtown, they fall away with time. 

The first time Juno goes into a store and purchases plates and mugs, mugs that aren’t  _ hey look juno me an’ ben glued all of those mugs your ma broke back together ‘cept we didn’t know which were which so they’re a little creative y’know  _ he stops in his tracks. Newness - things with no history - he doesn’t know how to react to physical items with no defects or tied-up feelings or both. He feels oddly blank in a uniform he knows no one has worn before.

Later, he realizes that new things can get stories too. Laser burns, stains from Rita’s snack mishaps, blood. Some feel like scars, but others feel like lineage. Like Ben would maybe rub the fabric of Juno’s snack-stained pajamas in his hands and say  _ must’ve been one hell of a movie night with Rita.  _ Juno quietly imagines Ben would say,  _ didn’t you tear the knee out of those pants while you caught that kidnapping asshole?  _

Maybe that’s how Juno managed to get himself to leave Mars. Reminding himself that he doesn’t need Martian dust on his heels to be himself, to be someone Ben would be proud of. He matters, and the stories are still with him even if the items are lost. He’s brought the best relics of Ben with him, tucked away in a suitcase and a memory inked onto his arm; his history with Rita is warm and present, he can call Mick, and his feelings about Sasha are complicated at best. He’s doing okay, and when things get bad, or nostalgic, or both, he has something in his hands to remind him that he’s a real person who can touch things. 

Now here he is, confronted with a Nureyev curled in the corner of his bed, staring at his hands like he doesn’t quite think they’re real. Jet is in the infirmary after their last job - a momentary lapse on Nureyev’s part got Jet stabbed. Juno knows the feeling. The guilt, the - what had Rita called it? -  _ dissociation _ , feeling a million miles from anyone and especially yourself. 

Juno isn’t good at comforting people, especially people who don’t look like they’d like to be touched. Nureyev hasn’t said anything yet since Juno started talking about his coat, so Juno takes a deep breath and starts to explain.

“My brother, when we were kids and things got bad, he’d explain where his stuff came from. Like, his shoes originally belonged to his dance teacher’s nephew or things like that. He’d go through everything he was wearing, find the ways it got to him as far as he knew, and the ways he’d made it his own, like repaired it or remade it or important things he associated with it. I think it helped him... stay present, I guess, when he felt like flying away. After he died, it helped keep him with me, I think. Helped keep me grounded.” 

Nureyev shakes his head, says near-imperceptibly, “I don’t have anything like that.” He looks up, eyes red. “I’m not really a person, not like that, I - I don’t have anything like that.” He looks more panicked, and Juno pushes down his own panic in response. 

“Yeah you do,” Juno says. “Look at my coat.” 

So Juno sits across the bed from him, legs crossed, and hands Nureyev his coat. Shows him how to rub his thumb across the fabric and pitches his voice low and soothing. 

_ Those on the arm, that’s where Cecil goddamn Kanagawa got me and you patched me up. God, I was so far gone on you already, even with all the blood loss. That’s the pocket you took my damn safe key from. Then later, that lovely little stain is what happened when we slid through the garbage chutes in the Oasis Hotel. Here and here, that’s where Rita stole it one night and had it professionally repaired after Miasma. There’s still Martian dust in the pockets, of course. And here’s the coffee stain from my first few minutes on the ship, I should probably wash this, really… and here’s that nail polish you dared me to steal that immediately broke in my pocket, and there’s my plasma cutter I finally got back around to sewing into my sleeve - _

Peter’s fingers close, lightly, around Juno’s. He doesn’t look up.

_ It’s not like scars. It’s just stories.  _

Peter nods and squeezes his hand. 

**Author's Note:**

> i promise i'm working on up the wolves i'm just better at feelings than plot
> 
> come say hi at healingsteel.tumblr.com


End file.
